Yahoo, Tattoos, and tOSU (1-year bowl ban, 82 scholly limit for 3 years)

[buckeyesin07]

from the dispatch article:

if the estimated values were higher than the price paid in nearly half of the transactions, then doesn't it follow that the estimated values were lower than or equal to the price paid in more than half of the transactions?

I don't know--maybe you should see post #2639, made about 3 hours ago.

 

[Jaxbuck]

The OSU compliance guy sees enough transactions happening with this one salesman to ban him from sideline passes but claims to not be a car expert and has to trust the car dealers to be ethical in terms of pricing.

There is a public document showing that a player paid $0 for a 2 year old car.

So again, OSU knows an unusual amount of players do business with the guy and give him free passes but no one ever notices a free fucking car?

Really? Didn't we just have a bit of an incident where the official OSU athletic department line didn't quite pass the smell test?

 

[Jake]

Several times, I'm still not entirely sure he's not involved in some way..



Ok ok, let's play the devil's (possibly delusional) advocate here. The osu COMPLIANCE staff directed the players to him, why would the COMPLIANCE staff in particular do such a thing? I mean the word of mouth from the player to player would be more discreet and leave less of a paper trail.

Let's imagine though that you are a compliance department and you've got 105 football players you are looking after (plus all of their family members). Wouldn't it be a lot easier for the department to try to funnel the players and families into 1 dealership where they could monitor the transactions rather then having players go all over Columbus showing up with cars from all these different dealers and trying to deal with the headaches that that would cause trying to keep tabs to make sure all of those transactions are in compliance (Not to mention players relatives, who aren't allowed to receive extra benefits either and who often hail from different locations making it all the more difficult to monitor). This is especially true if they felt that that Kniffin had a good grasp of NCAA rules and they trusted him to comply with them (Of course whether they were right to trust him is another issue).

I appreciate what you're doing, and it isn't easy, so I'm by no means criticizing you for it. I think it is good to look at all possibilities.

Unfortunately, that explanation fails in a few ways. First off, why the hell would family members of OSU players who aren't from the Columbus area be buying cars there? What is in it for them? Pryor's mom and brother both bought cars from Kniffin in Columbus? He must be one helluva salesman.

Then there's this, again:

Kniffin and the owner of one of the dealerships he worked for, Jason Goss, have attended seven football games as guests of players, including the 2007 national championship game and the 2009 Fiesta Bowl.

Three words come to mind: quid pro quo.

 

[JBaney45]

I appreciate what you're doing, and it isn't easy, so I'm by no means criticizing you for it. I think it is good to look at all possibilities.

Unfortunately, that explanation fails in a few ways. First off, why the hell would family members of OSU players who aren't from the Columbus area be buying cars there? What is in it for them? Pryor's mom and brother both bought cars from Kniffin in Columbus? He must be one helluva salesman.

Then there's this, again:

Kniffin and the owner of one of the dealerships he worked for, Jason Goss, have attended seven football games as guests of players, including the 2007 national championship game and the 2009 Fiesta Bowl.

Three words come to mind: quid pro quo.

Pryor's mom and brother fall under the same set of rules as TP himself. They aren't allowed to receive deals on cars from someone in Pittsburgh any more then they are allowed from someone in Columbus according to the NCAA's unenforceable rules.So Pryor's mom and brother go to the dealership in Columbus and get their cars from the "compliance recommended" dealer with whom it's easy for them to track the paper work. Certainly they would be making enough trips back and forth that they could just pick up the car one of the times they stopped to see TP. In terms of the Pryor family being able to afford to buy 3 cars in a relatively short time frame (TP's, his brothers and his mom's) I don't really feel like their personal finances should have anything to do with this discussion...

Obviously the ticket situation looks questionable. I don't know if the fact that they directly received a players allotted tickets is enough evidence to convict anyone of wrongdoing here though. The doubt in my mind would surface from the fact that giving out a free or reduced cost vehicle doesn't really match up with how much those tickets would be worth (ala their would be cheaper ways for Kniffin to get tickets to those games). It seems like yeah, but it doesn't directly translate in terms of value as an exchange like the whole "tattoos for memorabilia" thing did.

 

[scarletmike]

The OSU compliance guy sees enough transactions happening with this one salesman to ban him from sideline passes but claims to not be a car expert and has to trust the car dealers to be ethical in terms of pricing.

There is a public document showing that a player paid $0 for a 2 year old car.

So again, OSU knows an unusual amount of players do business with the guy and give him free passes but no one ever notices a free fucking car?

Really? Didn't we just have a bit of an incident where the official OSU athletic department line didn't quite pass the smell test?

Except that Gibson claims he is still paying the car off. That should be simple enough to prove on Gibson's part, and suggests that maybe this dealer was running a scam that managed to be a good enough front for the players and some in the compliance department. I'll trust a player that claims he's paying off a car over a dealer who is evidently several hundred thousand deep in trouble with the IRS.

I think there's a little too much reaction by those who were unfortunately right about the JT improprieties to "jump off the cliff" with this news. My first impression was that this smells like a massive scam that tOSU is unfortunately caught up in by no ill-intent of their own. I'll hold the impression of an unfortunately well executed scam until Compliance or the NCAA turns over evidence proving there were known benefits here.

 

[BuckShot63]

Absent of special deals why would 50+ cars be bought by players in a 5-6 year period from the same dealership? That is going to be the perception no matter what the truth is. So it should of thrown up automatic red flags about it.

Let's remember that a "special deal" (meaning one that runs afoul of NCAA rules) is one a student athlete receives BECAUSE he/she is a student athlete. Many businesses will offer favorable terms for repeat business and for referrals to ANY customer. To whom would student athletes make referrals beside other student-athletes and their parents? I don't see the NCAA getting into the business of telling anyone that a car that went for 11,600 should've gone for 12,800.

 

[Gatorubet]

No, it is nothing like that.

Opinions. We all have them. I think it is an apt analogy. What you ignore is the purpose of the rule. The very thing that you complain about - the undeniable marketability and value of an item associated with a college football star athlete - is what creates a rule making it impermissible for a student to sell his stuff. It is an easy way for a kid to make a fortune while in school off of his athletic notoriety. But the kid would not make a bundle off of his jersey because he was TP, the awesome quarterback. Had he been TP, the awesome quarterback for Southern Montana State, nobody would give a rat's ass about the jersey. TP - the starting QB at TOSU is what makes it valuable.

And you ultimately are complaining that the institution makes a bundle off due to the efforts of the student, even thought it is prohibited for the student to make money off of his own efforts when the institution can. That is EXACTLY why it is like the research guy at Dow Chemical. You are complaining that Dow can make money off of the contributions of an employee by promoting a product that the employee had more of a hand in creating and marketing than the institution, but the employee is unable to reap the benefit duet to some unfair rule made up by the company and its buddies. Is it fair? Yeah. Because without the Dow Chemical lab and a salary and the resources and the contacts and the training supplied by Dow Chemical, the guy is some smart guy in his basement wishing that he could afford the best centrifuges and mass spectrometers - but his student Mastercard is maxed out at $400 due to spring break.

Terrelle Pryor contributed to the notoriety of his jersey by doing what he was "hired" to do when he signed his LOI to attend tOSU. For his efforts he receives an education, the best coaching, training, and a marketing bonanza that shows off his skills to a worldwide audience by virtue of affiliating himself with a Big-10 traditional football power with a BCS and post season bowl history. That will help him get drafted by the NFL and maybe he will make millions. The employee at Dow gets resources, training, equipment, contacts, and a salary. He may use that to get a better job or to be hired at a stock option bonanza by some start up seeking to use his Dow experience as a means of legalized industrial espionage, depending upon the non-compete he likely signed. But then, he did not have to sign it, and he did not have to work for Dow. TP did not have to sign an NCAA LOI, but he did, and whether a non-compete or an athletic scholarship under NCAA regulations, they both agreed in advance to the deal.

Saying that Dow would profit greatly from his skills and efforts, while he would not join equally (or even meaningfully) in the profits would be true. Same for Terrelle. If it is unfair in your mind, so be it. TP made the choice to join an organization under rules devised long before he showed up. TP made a choice to maximize his own chance of athletic success. He had no problem whatsoever sucking every benefit possible out of his relationship with tOSU: he wants coach Tress to be his coach, he wants the national TV coverage, he wants the exposure of conference championships, big games, post-season glory, possible BCSNC runs, and to be a Big Man in college football because he chose tOSU. As an added benefit he gets an education at one of the premier public institutions of higher learning in the country, and an alumni network that will support him in his future endeavors, providing him opportunities undreamt of by millions of kids like him. I do not get why you think this so unfair. Dow provides the opportunity to make the invention possible, and reaps the rewards, possibly an obscene amount of rewards, off of the young man's efforts. Same here.

All I can think of is a resounding, "so what"?

The problem is not that Pryor can work at OSU (with room, board and tuition) and they can sell the TDs he makes with tickets, tv rights, etc.

The problem is they are skirting the lines and selling an illegal product, a Pryor jersey, because it doesn't explicitly have his name on the back, because clearly there are a lot of folks who wonder if it is a Christian Bryant jersey when they see it.

That is the double standard and hypocrisy.

First, it is not a "problem", any more than it is a problem that my employer makes money off of my efforts. Yeah, I know they are not employers in the sense of a paycheck, but they are in the sense of a person joining your enterprise in order to take advantage of your institution and receive the benefits that you can offer them in the form of training, education, marketing, etc.

And nothing about the product is "illegal". Everyone knows that it is Terrelle Pryor and his number. But again, send Terrelle to Temple, put that number on a Temple jersey, and let's see how many you freaking sell.

If Pryor's likeness cannot be sold in merchandising until he is no longer an amateur, then that should apply to the school as well.

There will be other twelves after, just like there were other twelves before he came to tOSU. He does not own the number, and he has no patent or copyright on a generic jersey with a number and no name.

We can talk about the idea of some kind a stipend for the kids because of the poor backgrounds that many athletes come from. I like that. But I do not think it hypocritical of the school to sell jerseys. The bargaining power of Dow Chemical and Joe Blow college job seeker is not the same. See, generally, the unfairness of life. Same with TP and tOSU. I'm glad that he has brought success as a player to tOSU. But when he set foot at tOSU he was potentially one injury, one felony, one failed final - and one better QB away from being a "nothing" the day he signed his LOI. On that signing day, tOSU was tOSU. The bargaining power, including the rights to sell his jersey number, was all in favor of tOSU. Why? See also "life", generally, subsection "unfair".

 

[Buckeye513]

WALL OF TEXT

 

[Wells4Heisman]

the sky is falling, the sky is falling. :(

 

[Gatorubet]

WALL OF TEXT

fify

 

[OH10]

the sky is falling, the sky is falling. :(

On Ohio State athletics... maybe.

If this turns into the shitstorm I think it is, you can say "goodbye" to the athletic department. This could be worse than SMU in terms of the egregious conduct.

 

[bassbuckeye07]

On Ohio State athletics... maybe.

If this turns into the shitstorm I think it is, you can say "goodbye" to the athletic department. This could be worse than SMU in terms of the egregious conduct.

Let me know when they have the books with all the payroll payments and then after they are caught continue to pay the players by check because they made a promise to them

 

[MaxBuck]

... you can say "goodbye" to the athletic department.

Not to be hyperbolic or anything.

 

[Mike80]

Not to be hyperbolic or anything.

stadiiumdorm is not hyberbolic ever.

 

[OregonBuckeye]

On Ohio State athletics... maybe.

If this turns into the shitstorm I think it is, you can say "goodbye" to the athletic department. This could be worse than SMU in terms of the egregious conduct.

I am absolutely shocked oh1o would take this viewpoint.